Letter to the editor: Nelson

Letter to the editor:

In last week’s paper, Georgiann Musolf had a letter to the editor published. Unfortunately, Mrs. Musolf had several “facts” incorrect. I felt a need to write a follow-up letter to correct those inaccuracies.

First, Mrs. Musolf wrote about the issue with the bidding of the work for our new aquatic center and the water main on 7th Street NW. Mrs. Musolf mistakenly referred to this as a “Best Value Bid” process. Best Value Bidding and straight bidding are two different processes cities can use to bid projects. This project she refers to was not a Best Value Bid process. The city used straight bids for this project. Meaning the low bid got the job. There were two aspects to this. The base bid was a large water main to be installed to the aquatic center. Along with that, there was an alternate project which extended the water main down 7th Street NW to Mantorville Avenue. In the bid documents it was spelled out the bid would be awarded to whoever had the lowest “Base Bid.” Every contractor who bid on this project signed the documents stating they understood how the bidding would work. Therefore, after the bids were opened we could not combine the Base Bid and the Alternate bids and award on the combined bid amount. In this care a contractor had a lower bid when the Base and Alternate were combined, however, his base bid amount was higher than the contractor who was awarded the bid. It is unfortunate the contractor did not understand this, even though he signed off stating he did understand it. I’m not at liberty to say why the City decided to settle out of court with the contractor, but I will say for myself, I would have hated to see the Aquatic Center project delayed. There is a lot of excitement building around the Aquatic Center and we need to keep that project on track.

Second, Mrs. Musolf questions the reasoning behind the purchase of a new ladder truck for the Kasson Fire Department. We have been told the current ladder truck no longer meets NFPA standards. In addition it is in need of several repairs which would cost many times what the truck is worth. Not meeting NFPA standards can put the City’s insurance rating at risk. We simply cannot do that to our citizens. The current Fire Chief and the Deputy Chiefs put in many hours researching what would best serve the community. They were able to come up with specifications which give us a truck that will fit in the current fire hall with no modifications needed to the hall, and with many safety features which will help to keep our firefighters safe. In addition, the cost of this truck came in at a reasonable amount.

Along with this, Mrs. Musolf makes reference to a new fire hall and some other future planning. Yes, the city does have a conceptual drawings for a new Public Safety Building. These drawing were required for that grant. Unfortunately, we were not selected for that grant. In fact, I don’t believe any city in Minnesota was selected for that grant. One thing I have always felt was important as a City Council member is long range thinking. Yes, we need to take care of today’s problems and today’s issues, but we also need to think how these decisions affect us in five years, in 10 years, and in 20 years. I expect our City staff to be constantly thinking about where Kasson will be in the future. Will the future include a full-time fire chief? In 15 or 20 years, it might.

Mrs. Musolf’s third statement is a bit confusing. She criticizes the City for hiring three full-time employees after a long-time employee retired. Actually, the City of Kasson just celebrated two retirements of City employees two weeks ago and a retirement this past summer. In addition we had a full-time employee leave the City a couple of months ago. Yes, we need to replace these staff. The City provides many services residents have come to depend on. We need staff to keep those services going. I don’t understand how Mrs. Musolf, or anyone, can criticize us for this.
The Kasson City Council meets at 6:00 p.m. on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of each month. At the beginning of each meeting is a time when the public is invited to make statements or ask questions. It is rare to have anyone from the public to show at these meetings. In fact, I think it has been over a year since I have seen Mrs. Musolf at one of our meetings. By attending the meetings, one can then get the facts instead of just “hearing it around town.”  

Thank you for the opportunity to address this.
Matt Nelson

Mayor's Memo

The past few months I have written mostly about the status of 16th Street and the Bridge, the pool, etc.  Today, 16th Street is open (still some minor work to be completed now and in the spring) and the pool project is in full swing.  These are very good things to have going on!

With the pool project we will be placing solar panels on the southern portion of the pool house roof.  This will be very similar to the solar panels currently in use on City Hall.  In the October Newsletter (included with your utility bill) some information was provided on how much energy has been produced by those panels.  Most of the power generated is used by City Hall (lowering our need to purchase power) and we did produce enough power to put back into “the grid” 3.9 megawatt hours.  Quite frankly, I’m impressed by this! By putting these and more panels to work for us, along with finding other energy savings, just pushes us further ahead in our quest to be more efficient. 

The solar panels also coincide with our Green Steps program to move towards a more sustainable energy model for our community.  If you look at where our energy comes from, we have moved significantly away from a mostly coal based energy source, to natural gas, solar, wind, etc.  There is even a hydroelectric project in Canada our power agency is keeping an eye on.  With energy prices dropping/leveling off (at a time most experts predicted higher prices) most people would be staying the course; however, it behooves our community to continue to move forward finding new ways to provide energy to our homes while conserving energy when possible.
 
On the topic of conserving energy, we are offering up a new program (in partnership with the Center for Energy and Environment -- a MN non-profit) for our utility customers.  A FREE informational meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 27 at 6:30PM in the High School Choir Room.  This is a great time to find out more about conserving energy in your home, doing a home energy audit, etc!  Child care will be provided free of charge.  We do need a count of how many are planning to attend, so please call or email Krista at City Hall (634-7071 or cityhall@cityofkasson.com). 

Finding more ways to be energy efficient and produce energy from multiple sources will help our community weather the inevitable increase in energy prices as our economy recovers.  Keep an eye out from more information on the above and more!

Lastly, please join me on Saturday, November 17, from 8:30 – 9:30AM at Daniel’s.  I’ll be there having a cup of coffee and available to answer your questions, take ideas, etc.

In your service,
Mayor Tim Tjosaas
mayor@cityofkasson.com